Best of Web: Parasites may protect allergies...

Politician says the competition is a blight on city's tourism

Liberal MP Peter Abetz says the wet T-shirt competition is a blight on Broome tourism.
A weekly wet T-shirt competition at a Broome pub should be scrapped because it treats women as sex objects, Abetz told Perth Now.

The Roebuck Bay Hotel offers $500 to the winner, but on some nights it runs a "super wet T-shirt" competition where the winner gets $1000.
Abetz is a member of a parliamentary committee investigating alcohol abuse in WA.
"I assume they have a licence. When that comes up for renewal, I would like to see it denied," he told the daily.

Finally, here's something women 'admire' about men

(FILE)

There are some things women actually like about the way men drive.

The secret views on the driving habits of the opposite sex are revealed in a survey of 2,000 motorists for car accessories retailer Halfords, reorts Daily Mail.

Women secretly admire the peculiarly male skill of parking in a tight space and reversing.

In return, men like the fact that women drivers will remember to take something to eat on long journeys – and will ask for directions when they are lost.

Almost 50 per cent women confessed the thing they most loved about male drivers was that they knew what to do if there was a flat tyre or if the car broke down.

The second best thing about men behind the wheel was, 'how they park in tight spaces', (41 per cent ) closely followed by their skill at manoeuvring and reversing (39 per cent).

THINGS WOMEN LOVE ABOUT MALE DRIVERS

The way men know what to do if the car has a flat tyre or breaks down

How they park in tight spaces

Their skill at manoeuvring and reversing

Their sense of direction

Their driving on motorways and at roundabouts

THINGS WOMEN HATE ABOUT MALE DRIVERS

Tailgating - driving too close to the car in front's rear bumper

Driving too fast

Using a mobile phone while driving

Showing road rage

Refusing to ask for directions

Constantly changing radio channels

THINGS MEN LOVE ABOUT WOMEN DRIVERS

That they always think to pack food and drink for the journey and organise food and coffee stops

That they will ask for directions when lost

Their courtesy to other road users and the way they let others out at busy times

The way they don't lose their temper or have road rage when driving

The way they keep talking so you don't fall asleep on long journeys

THINGS MEN HATE ABOUT WOMEN DRIVERS

The time they take to manoeuvre in and out of parking spaces

That they put on make-up and do their hair at stop lights and junctions

The length of time they take to move off from traffic lights, junctions and roundabouts

The way they turn and talk to passengers instead of watching the road

That they don't know how to drive at roundabouts or use motorway lanes

Who killed JFK? List of suspects up for auction

(AGENCY)The former secretary of President John F. Kennedy made a list of suspects she believed were behind his assassination immediately after he was gunned down in Texas.

As she flew home on Air Force One Evelyn Lincoln jotted down the names of those she suspected were behind the killing.

They included Richard Nixon and the country's vice president Lyndon Johnson.

She also named the Klu Klux Klan, the CIA and Communists as she mulled over who could have ordered the assassination.

Her thoughts were scribbled down on a single sheet of paper, the daily reported.

The never-before-seen note is now up for sale and is expected to go for more than £20,000 at an auction next week.

JFK's assassination in 1963 has long been the subject of conspiracy theories, ranging from those behind the murder to doubts about the lone assassin theory.

Real-life Da Vinci Code

(AFP)

Historians discover tiny numbers and letters in the eyes of the Mona Lisa, reports Daily Mail.

The newspaper reported that the Mona Lisa was at the centre of a new mystery after art detectives took a fresh look at the masterpiece – and noticed something in her eyes.

Hidden in the dark paint of her pupils are tiny letters and numbers, placed there by the artist Leonardo da Vinci and revealed only now thanks to high-­magnification techniques, the paper said.

Driver was briefly knocked out by a lump of wood on a busy freeway, reports Herald Sun. Upon regaining consciousness, the trucker guided his truck into an emergency lane.

He says he saw a pair of teens on the overpass moments before the attack.

The driver sustained head and shoulder injuries and was taken to the hospital.

"He was very shaken, but he was also in an incredible amount of pain as well and obviously bewildered about what had happened. Some things you just don’t expect,’’ a paramedic told the daily.

The offender remains at large.

Qantas jet's 'lucky escape' after water leak

(REUTERS)

Leaking water knocked out electricity to a number of systems during a Qantas 747's flight to Bangkok, forcing the crew to land using limited battery power in a race against the clock.

The plane, with 346 passengers and 19 crew, was on descent in 2008 when the flight crew were alerted to a “substantial” water leak in the galley.

As a result of the leak many of the aircraft‘s communication, navigation, monitoring and warning, and flight guidance systems were affected.

Had the event occurred more than 30 minutes flying time from the nearest suitable airport, or if there had been a delay prior to landing, numerous flight-critical systems would have become unavailable, placing the flight at “considerable” risk, air safety investigators warned

The aircraft‘s batteries were available to provide power to critical systems for a limited period of time if the primary power sources were lost.

Parasites may protect against allergies

(AGENCY)Children infected with hookworm or other intestinal parasites may be less likely than uninfected children to have allergies, a new research review finds.

The study, published in the journal Allergy, gives some support to the idea that our increasingly germ-free surroundings may be contributing to a worldwide increase in allergies and asthma in recent decades - a theory known as "the hygiene hypothesis."

It's thought that exposure to viruses and other pathogens early in life may help nudge the immune system toward a normal infection-fighting mode, and away from a tendency to overreact to benign substances, which is the basis of allergies.

Studies so far, however, have come to conflicting conclusions about the hygiene hypothesis. Some, for example, have linked early attendance at daycare, where kids swap germs freely, to a lower risk of developing allergies and asthma - which would seem to support the hygiene theory. But others have found no such protective effect.

For this latest analysis, Dr. Johanna Feary and colleagues at the University of Nottingham in the UK analyzed 21 previous studies on the association between parasitic infection and children's allergy risk.

The research, which included almost 29,000 people, most of them children, was conducted in South America, Africa, Cuba, Vietnam and Turkey - regions where intestinal parasite infections are common. The majority of subjects were infected by the geohelminth family of parasites - which includes hookworm, roundworm and whipworm.

When Feary's team pooled the results of all the studies, they found that participants with any current parasitic infection were 31 percent less likely than others to display reactions when exposed to common allergens like dust mite or cockroach proteins in a skin test.

Such skin responses indicate that the immune system is reacting to the proteins, though that does not necessarily mean the person has a full-blown allergy that might bring on sneezing, congestion or other symptoms with greater exposure to the substance.

The findings also do not prove that intestinal parasites, themselves, are protective against allergies. Further research on the relationship between the two is still needed, according to Feary and her colleagues.
Since allergies are common in developed countries, and on the rise in developing ones, the researchers note, it is increasingly important to understand how environment might be affecting allergy risk worldwide.

Curbing parasitic infections in the developing world remains an important goal, Feary and her colleagues point out. Nonetheless, they add, these findings raise the question of whether eradicating such infections could have the unintended effect of boosting allergy rates in countries where health services are already overstretched.

Men fined over "indecent" fashion show makeup

(AFP)A Sudanese court convicted seven men of indecency on Wednesday after police accused them of wearing makeup during a fashion show in Khartoum, their lawyer said.

The men, amateur models at the "Sudanese Next Top Model Fashion Show" in June, were arrested by the public order police, a body known for its crackdowns on perceived indecent dress and drinking in the Muslim north, one defendant told Reuters.

All seven were found guilty on Wednesday and each fined 200 Sudanese pounds ($80), as was a woman who faced the same charge for applying the makeup, said lawyer Nabil Adib.

"The court thought that they were indecently dressed ... The judge thought that wearing makeup could be offensive for men and allowing a woman to put makeup on men was against the law," said Adib.

The lawyer said he had argued in court that men, including religious preachers, regularly wore makeup for appearances on Sudan's state television station.

The defendants could have faced a maximum punishment of 40 lashes and imprisonment, said Adib.

Sudanese UN official Lubna Hussein was briefly jailed for wearing trousers in public after being found guilty for the same offence in 2009, a case that drew international criticism.

Douglas, Zeta-Jones named top celebrity couple 2010

(AP)

Cancer-stricken Michael Douglas and his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones have been named the top celebrity couple of 2010.

The "Wall Street" legend dominated headlines in August when he revealed he has been diagnosed with a throat tumour, reports contactmusic.com.

In a poll by dating website chemistry.com, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt came second, while Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher rounded out the top three of the list.

Honeymoon killer named in another murder

(GETTY IMAGES)

A Briton of Indian origin, accused of plotting the murder of his newly-married wife in South Africa, is now being linked to another similar carjack killing of an Indian-origin doctor in 2007, a media report said Monday.

Shrien Dewani, 30, a businessman from Bristol, is accused of organising his bride Anni's death.

Anni, a 28-year-old engineering graduate of Ugandan-Indian descent from Sweden, was killed in Cape Town Nov 13 when two men hijacked the car she and Shrien were travelling in. Shrien was let go by the attackers.

Dewani allegedly offered a taxi driver 1,400 pounds to arrange for Anni to be shot dead in a staged carjacking, according to claims outlined by a prosecutor in South Africa.

Now, police in South Africa are trying to build a new case against Dewani based on claims by the taxi driver, jailed for 18 years over the shooting, The Sun reported.

Zola Tongo, 31, told detectives he is convinced the groom arranged a similar previous murder.

The fresh inquiry centres on Pox Raghavjee, a 63-year-old doctor, killed by carjackers near his home in King William's Town in 2007.

Police in Cape Town have made the focus of their new probe a meeting between Raghavjee's widow, Heather, and Dewani and his father Prakash after Anni's death.

Her visit was requested by her daughter-in-law Alvita, a friend of the Dewanis in Bristol.

But police have no evidence Dewani was ever in South Africa before his honeymoon.

Heather Raghavjee said: "I am very upset, particularly for Shrien, at the awful accusations over my husband's murder. There is no substance in them."

Though South Africa wants Dewani extradited to face trial, he was freed on a 250,000 pound bail by the High Court, pending more hearings.

South African police chief commissioner Gen Bheki Cele said: "We don't like it but the UK assures us he has an electronic tag to stop him fleeing.

"We have a powerful case against him. The guy needs to come and try to clear his name."

A spokeswoman confirmed they were looking at Raghavjee's murder. "That investigation is ongoing, even if it means linking Mr Dewani to other cases."